The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary • Hacker News Board

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#131

Post by general_failure » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:17 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #31

kamaal wrote: post #28

As an Indian, I can see what pain this guy went through. Fighting the society to build a start up like this, with this kind of taboo attached to the product? All the best trying to build a start up at the first place. You are almost treated like you are doing it because you absolutely are incapable of doing anything else. And having the gumption to fight years of laughter, isolation, mockery and ridicule to only chas…

Yeah but I made an app to send your friends links with one less click!

Here take a billion.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#132

Post by gknoy » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:23 PM UTC

shiven wrote: post #38

visakanv wrote: post #3

What a classic Hero's Journey story- man encounters difficulty experienced by his loved one, tries to solve her problem efficiently, loses her in the process, becomes an outcast, persists, finds meaning in his work, receives help, is humble, helps people at an epic scale, reunites with his wife, happy ending, better world, triumph over ignorance and hardship.

You may also find this real-life story inspiring ... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi One man's epic struggle against the landscape, to not let others suffer as he did.

That was amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#133

Post by PhasmaFelis » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:25 PM UTC

dirkgently wrote: post #85

keithxm23 wrote: post #66

Here's a link to his very inspiring TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...

Jesus. Why does TED has to go and spoil every fucking good thing?

What is with this ridiculous knee-jerk reaction against anything TED? If that video had been exactly the same except for the TED name, you would've been fine with it. But you've decided TED must be bad, and therefore anything connected with TED is also bad. Lose the silly bias and let good things be good things.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#134

Post by visakanv » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:28 PM UTC

gknoy wrote: post #132

shiven wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may also find this real-life story inspiring ... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi One man's epic struggle against the landscape, to not let others suffer as he did.

That was amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

I also know of another guy who planted an entire forest: http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/indian-man-who-pl...

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#135

Post by araneae » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:30 PM UTC

jaldoretta wrote: post #92

I'm a female founder in the US with a startup that has to do with menstruation, and I cannot even begin to tell you how uncomfortable people (male and female) get when I talk with them about it. For a man in India (where this topic is exponentially more taboo) to undertake a business like this and persist despite the backlash is so incredibly inspiring. The benefit of his business goes so far beyond simply reducing n…

Very cool! I use cycle for this which only does averaging, which works okay but it's seriously old and clonky. I was wondering why someone hadn't done this already.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#136

Post by josephschmoe » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:36 PM UTC

BhavdeepSethi wrote: post #108

nate_meurer wrote: post #93

I want to hug this guy. Like, really. Buy me a airplane ticket. Arunachalam Muruganantham is a hero. I use that word in its full magnitude. Since I am now an expert on the matter, having read the entire article, I'll speculate on what motivates this man: - Grit. Crazy amounts of grit. The article is full of good quotes, but my favorite is what he said after being abandoned by his mother: "It was a problem for me," he…

"Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply". I've seen educated folks doing this as well, so, sadly yes. It is true. Most women follow it because their mothers/sisters have been doing it. Since it is so common, people tend to accept these superstitions more easily.

You should also consider the culture these myths create. It forces women to depend on one-another for a significant portion of the time, which, among other things, is a good anti-rape mechanism.

Certainly, these are crazy and superstitious, but given the realities of the times they come from, many of them were a net benefit to their rural society (or have minimal impact) - which is how they've survived to this day.

We have better knowledge now, and we should embrace it, but someone isn't necessarily stupid for following these rules.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#137

Post by jt2190 » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:38 PM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #119

BhavdeepSethi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply". I've seen educated folks doing this as well, so, sadly yes. It is true. Most women follow it because their mothers/sisters have been doing it. Since it is so common, people tend to accept these superstitions more easily.

No REALISTICALLY If as stated in this article in these regions during menstruation: 1) The woman uses dirt, sand, ash and rags which are never sterilized but just reused month after month. 2) 70% of all pregnancy related medical issues can be tied back to this lack of hygene Then its not unreasonable to say that the women are unclean in this period and should not have contact with the village water supply... its actu…

  > ... its actually good sense.

It's only "good sense" if, and this is a big if, (a) we have a strict scientific understanding of what we mean when we say "unclean" and (b) we know that we have literally no other way of mitigating this "uncleanliness."

Just as surgeons learned to sterilize themselves and their equipment once they had a scientific understanding of infection, we now have lots of scientific understanding of human menstruation and cleanliness. We should therefor look upon those that insist that women be treated as "unclean" and kept away from the village water supply and temple the same way we'd view a surgeon that insisted that there was no need to wash up before operating.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#138

Post by nsxwolf » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

yawz wrote: post #109

nate_meurer wrote: post #93

I want to hug this guy. Like, really. Buy me a airplane ticket. Arunachalam Muruganantham is a hero. I use that word in its full magnitude. Since I am now an expert on the matter, having read the entire article, I'll speculate on what motivates this man: - Grit. Crazy amounts of grit. The article is full of good quotes, but my favorite is what he said after being abandoned by his mother: "It was a problem for me," he…

Religions (and consequently certain traditions) that have survived until today have an incredible obsession with mensturation. This is just another stick to beat and humiliate women with. It is unbelievable (for a questioning, inquisitive human being) that Bronze Age traditions and beliefs are still revered today.

I'm not aware of an obsession with menstruation in any major variant of Christianity.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#139

Post by yummyfajitas » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #83

igul222 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentions that commercial napkins sold for 4 rupees despite cotton being 1/4000th the cost, but also says farther down that the locally produced ones sell for an average of 2.5 rupees each. That's a 38% discount: significant, but it doesn't seem like a game-changing difference to me. I imagine that if this catches on, the larger manufacturers will likely just cut their margins to compete. On a more general…

The 2.5 stayed local and made jobs. Its a huge difference. In essence, he gave the locals "permission" to produce these things for themselves. Wealth disparity is an interesting animal. The rich don't consume 1000's of times more resources than the poor despite having 1000's of times more 'money'. The wealth divide seems to function like an insidious form control wherein the uber-rich are able to deny local markets p…

As demonstrated by this article, the uber-rich are not able to deny local markets permission to do things for themselves. The uber-rich simply failed to figure out how to market pads themselves. If Ambani had figured out the marketing, this would just be another story of Reliance incrementally moving into another industry and making a bunch of money.

Trying to paint the uber-rich as some sort of villain here is silly.

The really interesting thing is that this is an example of the value of marketing.

Re: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary

#140

Post by kiiski » Tue, Mar 04, 2014, 5:48 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #138

yawz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religions (and consequently certain traditions) that have survived until today have an incredible obsession with mensturation. This is just another stick to beat and humiliate women with. It is unbelievable (for a questioning, inquisitive human being) that Bronze Age traditions and beliefs are still revered today.

I'm not aware of an obsession with menstruation in any major variant of Christianity.

Maybe not anymore (at least in the west), but the bible does have that stuff in it too.

http://www.openbible.info/topics/menstruation